An Elephant Never Forgets — Outliners 28
We’ve been streaming live comedy writing hangouts on Twitch, including one called The Outliners where the goal is to come up with a workable novel outline live from a prompt. It’s a revival of the podcast of the same name.
On this stream, we used a romance novel prompt from David Joel Stevenson to come up with the following outline. If you’d like to watch the full stream, you can do that here. On we go!
A paranormal romance with an elephant as one of the main characters.
Chatters who pitched ideas: Talenos, dsimardii, Voodoo463
Main Character: Bill. He has been cursed into the body of an elephant. He can hear and understand English but can’t speak it. His elephant name is Jago.
Act I
Bill, formerly a stubborn and vile ivory poacher who was only in it for the money is stuck in the body of an elephant. He got caught by a local with magical ability who cursed him. Now, known by his elephant name, Jago, Bill is trapped in the circus. He can hear and understand English, but can’t speak.
Inciting Incident
One day, at the circus, Bill spots Irving, a dashing and well-dressed circus goer. There is an accident, and Irving is trapped. Bill, going against his usual nature of a self-serving jackass, saves Irving, who has taken a blow to the head. As Irving is loaded into an ambulance and the crowd marvels at the rescuing elephant, Bill sends well wishes, mentally, to Irving… who responds mentally. Bill is stunned to learn that someone can communicate with him.
ACT II
Act II beats:
- Bill (aka Jago) becomes famous for saving a human
- He was formerly in danger of being sold or given away to a zoo because he’s garbage at doing tricks
- Bill spends a few days wondering if he’ll ever see Irving again.
- Bill learns that Irving is from Tulsa, OK, assumes Irving has gone home.
- As the media attention dies down, Bill is corraled into a cage. His worst fears are realized. He has been sold.
- Bill finds himself in the cargo hold of a ship. Lost, alone, on his way to certain doom in sub-Saharan Africa. A tiger is definitely going to eat his ass. And NOT in a good way.
- Irving comes to Bill in the cargo hold. They realize they can communicate. Irving promises to to everything he can to protect Bill.
- They go on a road trip together across Africa to find someone who can release Bill from the curse.
- Along the way they fight ivory poachers. Bill’s former colleagues.
- Irving has bought passage to Namibia, but they must go to Tanzania to find the magic peeps.
- Bill is concerned that his human body won’t be attractive to Irving
- Poachers kidnap Irving. Those bastards!
- Bill (maybe) proves he has changed, cares about animals, etc.
Big showdown
Though Bill and Irving think they’ve defeated the poachers, in fact they have been followed to the place of the magic peeps. The poachers have raised an army: machine guns, helicopter, all kinds of nasty shit. Bill, Irving, the magic peeps, and all the local elephants join together to kick the poachers in the nuts (or ovaries where applicable). Baboons just fuck in the trees.
ACT III
Magic peeps reward Bill.
There is a very awkward ceremony
End bestselling novel with a dick joke
Bill and Irving stay in Tanzania, set up or maybe use Irving’s money to save an elephant preserve
They are neighbors with Jane Goodall who is annoying
Title: An Elephant Never Forgets
Prompt for next time: Voodoo463 — A DMV killer He goes insane waiting and jumping through all of the hoops and tries to take revenge on the people working behind the counter
